The “Unhomed” in Zora Neale Hurston's “Their Eyes Were Watching God”
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Abstract
Many critics argue that Zora Neale Hurston overlooks racism in Their Eyes Were Watching God. This paper, however, discloses racial discrimination in this novel. Indeed, creating “unhomed” characters, Hurston dramatises African American agony. Dispossessed of her own body, Mrs Turner flounders in a dark skin that she endeavours to shed. Helplessly, Janie vacillates in-between two conflicting affinities. Starks is a prisoner within the confines of whites’ premises. Moreover, racial biases ostracise blacks on the muck. Voices of hostility break the silence of death and ruthlessly uproot the “unboxed” black corpses. From a postcolonial vantage point, this article explores racialism. Mainly, it relies on Homi Bhabha’s concept of homelessness or “cultural estrangement.” Where Bhabha differentiates between “unhomed and homeless”, this study delineates their overlap in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston deliberately links cultural alienation with spatial “deprivation” in order to better articulate Blacks’ torments.
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